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Surnames: Calvert
Classification: Lookup
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/WQH.2ACEB/952
Message Board Post:
I have recently purchased a book from the thrift store entitled The Oxford Dictionary Of
The American People by Morrison. In it are pictures of the Calvert Coat of Arms, a picture
of Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron of Baltimore with his grandson Cecil and a negro attendant
taken by Gerard Soest in 1670. There are many pages dedicated to the Calvert family,
especially Cecilius, Charles and George; all Lords of Baltimore. I would be more than
happy to transcribe some of the pages in email for you or, if you prefer, I can make
copies and ship them to you provided you cover the costs of copies and shipping. Can look
up numerous names as I have two books containing 1000's of names.
Page 79...SIR GEORGE CALVERT, of an old Yorkshire family, has been well described as
"the most respectable and honest" of the mediocre and greedy courtiers who came
into power under the early Stuarts. He aspired to build up the family fortune by a
proprietary colony of his own. First he tried it in Newfoundland on the Avalon Paninsula,
including the site of the World War II naval base at Argentia. After five years of this
(1622-1627), Calvert had to write it off as a bad investment. In the meantime, he had been
converted to the Roman Catholic faith and received the title of Baron Baltimore in the
Irish peerage. His new religion forced him to resign his seat on the Privy Council when
CHARLES I became king in 1625. But the new king, who liked him personally, compensated
Lord Baltimore in 1632 with a rich slice of the Old Dominion. This was the section between
the latitude of Philadelphia and the south bank of the Patomac, whose commerce and
fisheries he intended his friend to !
monopolize. The province was named Maryland, ostensibly after Queen Henrietta Maria, but
really in honor of the Virgin mary.....